Thrill
by WTFWonder
Summary: "There is probably no pleasure equal to the pleasure of climbing a dangerous Alp; but it is a pleasure which is confined strictly to people who can find pleasure in it." –A Tramp Abroad, Mark Twain
1. Prologue

**Thrill**

By Someone with Time on Their Hands

Summary: "There is probably no pleasure equal to the pleasure of climbing a dangerous Alp; but it is a pleasure which is confined strictly to people who can find pleasure in it." –_A Tramp Abroad, _Mark Twain

Prologue:

Gotham City had always been a harbor for violence. There were the usual haphazard gang scraps and neater, more sadistic mob wars. Abuse, murder and corruption were the norm amid rains of intoxicating powders and needles. Same old, same old. Then as Summer Vreeland, sweetheart of the ten o' clock news would say on the anniversaries of Fear Night and Joker's Experiment, the Batman swooped in and made the city legendary.

To the most hardcore cynics he was still an urban myth, but to the vast majority the Batman was a tangible wraith. A wraith with access to vehicles men would give their testes for and that could take down a S.W.A.T. team single-handed. According to a combination of the nightly news, Internet access, and a quiet osmosis most people reserve for hazily memorizing fairytales, the Batman had accomplished a number of feats. For starters he made night more frightening for criminals than it was for civilians. Common thieves and sadists were either pummeled and delivered to the G.C.P.D. or wisely hid in their reeking hovels. Gangs watched the sky for what was colloquially dubbed the Bat signal like antsy pedestrians ready for the DON'T WALK sign whilst in the middle of the crosswalk. The mob became the equivalent of Monty Python's Black Knight, insisting its loss of strength were mere flesh wounds.

Then when an opposing comic book escapee rose to raze Gotham it was the Batman that saved the night. That was Fear Night, when Dr. Jonathan Crane renamed himself the Scarecrow, revealed he was twice as cracked in the head as his patients and plunged a third of Gotham City into a waking nightmare. Precise effects were varied. The lucky ones felt inexplicable terror without hallucinations. Less lucky persons found themselves horrified at monsters that manifested themselves from other friends, family, stray cats, household appliances and garbage cans. People with no luck at all saw their own personal phobias given life. Suicides and frenzied murders ratcheted the death toll into the hundreds—no concrete number could be given as it was undetermined whether some deaths were products of poisoning or asylum escapees taking advantage.

On the upside when the dust cleared and the Scarecrow had vanished there was a vast hiring boom for cheap labor. Former workers had to be let go for reasons of death, limited access to the toxin's antidote and persistent, crippling nightmares.

Some months and a mountain of solitary victims babbling about scarecrows later, Dr. Crane was finally apprehended by the Batman. He was shrink-wrapped in a straightjacket and chucked into Arkham Asylum. With a Gordon's and D.A. Dent's mass-arrest of mob muscle to chase this down with, Gotham City had every reason to think they were entering the happily ever after stage of a fable. Dashing hero swoops in, confronts a villain or several, relative justice is carried out with a vengeance, and the city's name becomes synonymous with "danger zone for criminals."

Enter the Joker. His escapades need not be repeated. Then came the sobering announcement that the Batman had not only become a killer, but that his victim hadn't been Joker, but cops and beloved Harvey Dent. When this was topped off with the joint escape of Scarecrow and Joker from Arkham and the appearance of a cat-eared cat burglar, Gotham City realized they'd been mistaken. While they weren't in Hell they weren't about to graze Heaven either. Gotham City was destined to become Limbo.

Their metropolis was meant to breed absurdly canny, malevolent lunatics. These lunatics were to assault them bodily and mentally for however long it took Batman to crack their agendas and skulls. Batman would deliver them to the police he'd left alive. The police would give them to the judicial system. Arkham Asylum would take them from the judicial system. After cooling their feet the rogues would escape. Eventually these colorful types would pump acrid new life into the old school criminal element. Partnering with this mob for a moment, employing these thugs for assistance, and doing away with those that crossed them in ways far more creative than a plain Jane bullet between the eyes. Rinse and repeat with just enough death and destruction to worry the citizens and just enough Bat-based security to keep the city from keeling over entirely.

With all this in mind if a person told a Gothamite they were there as a tourist the addressed Gothamite would laugh or give the speaker a wide berth. When such a tourist finally arrived they were flabbergasted at the citizens' lack of enthusiasm. Oh well. Their loss if they didn't appreciate a good thrill when they saw one.


	2. Roxy Rocket

Roxy Rocket:

The name on the birth certificate was Roxanne Jamie Sutton. Her on-set nickname and preferred pseudonym was Roxy Rocket. She was a legend to the legendary in Hollywood; a woman not expected at the red carpet and would not much care about it unless the carpet was made of hot coals. Then she'd happily dance barefoot down its length and back. But only if she could enter via parachute. To save a mountain of uninteresting exposition, Roxy was one of the most accomplished stuntwomen to ever anonymously grace the silver screen.

Her first TV spot had been in a commercial for a Wayne Tech cellphone, the Worthwhile Slim. She had been the body double for a blonde actress that fell down a flight of stairs, out a window, into a car crash, then was chewed and spat out by a monster into an inferno. When the dust cleared at the end Blondie would stumble out of the rubble covered in gruesome makeup. She'd pant, rub grime off on her pants and resume the text message with the Worthwhile Slim that didn't have a scratch. The slogan: _We'll take a beating even when you can't._ A pretty successful advertisement all in all.

Roxy refused to go to the hospital after her arm was pulled from its socket and laughed off a split lip as cheaper than a collagen injection. The arm was popped back in with a heartier laugh. When her real hair caught fire under the wig her main complaint was the stink. She promptly gave herself a haircut and asked when the next scene was. After the commercial played for a week she got a call from her director telling her that he'd been called by a friend of his; a talent finder for one of the dozen or so C.S.I. shows on the air. They needed a stunt double for a female boxer that put up a fight while being beaten to a dead pulp. Roxy auditioned, was up to snuff, and wrestled with a stuntman for a few takes.

Sadly both parties came out of it uninjured. The pay was juicy enough, but the job was too dull to stand. She had entertained daydreams of going on Fear Factor or starting up a clone of Jackass before it occurred to her that the stunts in movies were far more extravagant. Roxy Rocket went stunt hunting.

The woman made herself desirable with hobbies she'd brought with her like keepsakes. She already maneuvered her car and motorcycle like a madwoman and she piloted a smattering of small scale aircrafts just as well. Manufactured rock wall climbing graduated to climbing actual walls made of rock, sometimes snow. Playing a spider monkey along the sides of buildings was the next logical step anyway. Plus she made her own fireworks for the 4th of July—if nothing else observing and/or being assaulted by professional pyrotechnics would give her something to add to her repertoire. Needless to say she was successful.

Successful in a way that made onlookers' and her insurance agent's sphincters tighten in worry. Her motto was, "Pulled punches promote piss poor performances." Roxy Rocket would have nothing to do with hindrances like, "pantomimed hits," or, "fireproof fabric," or, "sugar glass," or, "these are rudimentary safety measures, _please get off the ledge_." Her reputation set her apart from fellow stunt workers in that while others were callous with their lives for the sake of pay, she was callous with her life because it was fun. The threat of pain, lethal or otherwise, as a constant thrilled Roxy in ways sex, drugs and rock and roll wished they could imitate.

When lulls came between gigs she busied herself with old hobbies. Climb, drive, fight, set-fire-to. Eventually the unthinkable came to pass: Roxy grew bored. She took to walking through alleys at night wearing the only skirt that didn't belong to a costume department. Eventually a guy would come around wanting to pay for play. She would deny him. If she was lucky he'd want to do things the hard way. He might even pull a gun or only be after her money. That was when the buzz came back. There'd be beatings abound and she'd pull her own weapon as an absolute last resort.

This sport resulted in a total of two shiners, broken fingers on her left hand, a scar on her breast and one bullet wound to the shoulder for her. Her assailants walked away with injuries of varying seriousness and a concussion each. Roxy received harried thanks and stern warnings to, "stop putting yourself in harm's way, that's our job, and yes I'm certain it's frowned on for officers to go drinking on the job."

What really forced her to tone her diversions down was the scolding she got from her agent. According to him purposely trying to jump off the mortal coil was a bad thing. A bad thing that he better not see on a headline ever again. "Not a problem. Newspaper's dying anyway, I mean the Daily Bugle's almost two-thirds website and—. That's not what you were talking about?" She had received the glare of a put-upon teacher.

"I mean it, Sutton. There's no such thing as bad publicity only stretches so far before potential employers start worrying that their stuntwoman's going to turn up in a body cast or folded up in a dumpster after her daredevil luck ran out. Are you getting this at all?" Roxy had looked suitably chastened on the other side of the desk and focused on the twenty story-high view from the window.

"I get it, _Mom_. No more skulking around here at night." She looked back at the man and beamed. "I've been knocking myself around too much anyway. If you don't see any new contracts coming up do you think I have a free enough schedule for a vacation? Palm tree resorts and such?" The man, who really should be addressed as Mr. something or other, but Roxy forever referred to him as Mom, relaxed.

"Yes."

"Shouldn't you check first?"

"I should. But if there is something coming up I still say to hell with it. Go rejuvenate or heal or find inner peace or whatever it is people do on vacation. You need a break from," Mr. Mom gestured at her, "being you."

"I disagree. But I'll go get massaged and dance around with cabana boys if it'll put your mind at ease." Roxy wondered what a cabana boy that could get hot for a living crash test dummy with a death wish would be like and discarded the thought.

"It will," Mr. Mom said. "I've got a few favorite destinations in my contacts if you want them. I suggest Cozumel." Roxy cracked her neck like she knew he hated and stood, taking a handful of Andes mints from the crystal dish of them on the desk.

"Thanks, but I've got a place in mind already. Lovely place on the east coast, notable for its giant rodents in black ears."

"Dare you play traitor to Disneyland?"

"I do. Would you like some novelty ears when I get back?"

"Pass."

Roxy left on a chuckle full of melting mint and chocolate. Leaving the building she mused on the liberation of hiding behind exact words. While she was good at lies when it came to egging on acted or actual opponents, day-to-day social lies were tricky. Exact words were a relief. Exactly speaking, she had never said she was going to a resort. She had not specified what type of large, famous black-eared rodent she wanted to spot on the east coast. Most importantly she had only promised to avoid nighttime niches in good old Hollywood.

Who cared about such paltry distractions nowadays? Gotham City was where the action was. Hallucination-spewing scarecrows, killer clowns, sex kitten thieves, six-foot bats that trawled through the dark—the place sounded like paradise on steroids.

Author's Note: Before anyone whips out the Mary Sue detectors, Roxy Rocket was an actual character from Batman the New Adventures. The episode was, "The Ultimate Thrill," and it was rife with innuendo and explosions. She even showed up in the DC Comics canon fighting Stephanie Brown a.k.a. Batgirl. So she's legit, right down to her sadomasochistic stuntwoman biography.

Secondly, I'll come out and say that this is me flexing my fandom gland. If my interest in this venture fizzles before it comes full circle, it's because my attention was diverted by something shiny or carved from chocolate. Apologies for that and for whatever grammatical errors I left above.


End file.
